Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray

A nickname applied to someone who doesn't seem to age. The phrase refers to the titular character in Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, who makes a deal with an artist so that a painting of him ages, but he does not. Your grandfather must be like Dorian Gray because he doesn't look 70, let alone 90!

Dorian Gray

Someone who never appears to age. In his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde told the story of the title character who made a Faustian arrangement with an artist to paint his portrait, the proviso being that Gray would not age, but the face in his painting would. As with such pacts, Gray lived to rue it. It didn't take long before “Dorian Gray” was applied to anyone who showed no signs of aging. If, for example, after ten or twenty years you met a long-lost friend who looked much the same as when you last saw him or her, you would acknowledge that miracle as “Hey, it's Dorian Gray.” And if your friend recognized the allusion, the reply was likely to be, “Yeah, but you should see the painting in my attic.”

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